It’s been quiet around the blog for the last few weeks. But as you can probably guess from the title of this post, we have a good reason. We’ve (ALMOST) bought our first home! To be fair, we’re half way through escrow. So it’s technically not done, but at this stage of the process enough has been successful that we’re confident by the end of February we’ll be leaving the rental home and moving into our own place!

We’re very excited, scared, in shock, etc. Marie and I have been working towards this for arguably seven years. It’s been so long that this doesn’t feel real yet. The thought that there’s a home with a “Sale Pending” sign in front of it due to us seems crazy!

Needless to say, the blog will be a little quiet for the next month or so. But I’ll try to keep some new things coming in. I have a lot of empty walls that need pictures. So I’ll certainly still be out shooting.

Twiggy’s already made a mess of the place

I’ve learned something interesting about cameras. You can’t use them if you don’t have them. Strobes have this same characteristic. As do batteries, CF cards, all that stuff! Who knew?! I learned this the hard way a while back, so these days I almost always travel around with at least a small subset of my equipment, if not the whole kit. My wife really digs it when I bring the whole deal and fill up our entire trunk.

During Thanksgiving weekend we were visiting Marie’s Aunt, Ana. Ana’s daughter, Jenny, and her family were visiting from Chicago. During that visit we learned that Jenny was intending to take the kids to get Christmas card pictures the next day. Marie overheard that and pulled me into the conversation. Long story short, I had all my equipment in the car. I pulled it out, set up, and we had a session right there and then. After hanging out a bit, I drove home, did the editing and uploading. The next morning Jenny picked her cards. I ordered them and had them shipped to her house in Chicago a couple of days later. I have to say, the whole transaction went pretty smooth! I dare say that Jenny may have gotten the false impression that I know what I’m doing (shh, don’t tell her!). In the end, Jenny didn’t have to drag the kids one of those quick studios of variable quality, I got some business, and Marie bugs me a little less about all the gear in her car. A trifecta of win!

My first Christmas card session of the year was in mid-November for our good friends Mack and Valentina and their two kids (aka, our god-kids).

Lil’ Charles had just woken up from a mini-nap and found himself right in the middle of our session. He had a perfect little frown on his face. We tried a few shots, but he wasn’t feeling it. So we took a break and let the kids have some juice boxes. We then slowly moved back to the session.

I wanted to try something completely different with the lighting and I wanted a large light source. In short, I bounced three small hot shoe flashes into a queen sized sheet. By using the sheet the light was fairly even across all of them. I was very pleased with the results and it was fairly simple. This was shot behind my house in the driveway. So I don’t want to hear anyone’s excuses about their lack of a studio!

As happy as I was with this session, the one that occurred immediately after this one was less than stellar. But after a re-shoot, balance was returned to the world. I’ll save that story for a later post.

Now that Christmas is over and all most, of the Christmas cards I did are out, I think it’s safe for me to show off some of the work I’ve done over the last month and a half. This was easily my busiest December yet. Granted, it’s only my second December shooting. Regardless, it was BUSY and I was very pleased with the results.

This is my Mom, Aunts, and Uncle. They wanted a group shot taken as a Christmas gift for my Grandparents. While it’s technically true to call this the Dearman session, only one of them is for sure a Dearman. I probably could have posted this earlier. My Grandparents don’t spend much time on the internet. Shocking but true!

We all met at Two Strike Park in La Crescenta. I scoped out a spot, set up a light, did a couple test and started shooting. Thirty minutes later I was loading my equipment into my car. Easily one of the fastest shoots I’ve done yet. I shot this with my trusty Nikon D200 and 50mm prime and lit it with an AlienBees B800 through an umbrella. Powered via the Vagabond.  The month’s a blur but if I’m right, this was my first real use of the AlienBees equipment.